tarragon

Re: Can this be done x 2 This is great advice for the style of game sindyr seems to want to play. There was a wonderful writeup of playing Champions pointless in one of the early Digital Heroes. My Google-Fu 17- finds me: a copy of it on the wayback machine.

Re: Various Powers at Edge of System I didn't really mean to get into how to build this specific power, but a more general though process based on the example, but I will. If you want to rewind time and make people play it out before you do you go to EDM and convince the GM and other players it's a good idea to re play a chunk of game every time he uses the power. I think you could do it just fine with EDM, I don't think it's a good idea. The character is off on there own doing stuff and then zips back to tell everyone else what happens. That makes this character the center of attention way to much and makes everyone else roleplay the same event again pretending they don't remember it. If you play time based on this characters timeline they will endup getting the spotlight, alot, like all the time. If the GM is OK with this route it'll work fine. It should be very expensive though, it's very powerful. I would prefer to run game time based on the perspective of the rest of the characters and run that characters future exploits happen in handwavium space except in very dramatic circumstances. I game some examples of powers above. You new examples can be done as well. Working with my same assumptions as above...

Re: Various Powers at Edge of System Other people have talked about this in in specific and reasoning from FX in general but I want to emphasize it one more time with an example. The question you asked is how do I model jumping back in time. You don't model that directly. The GM and players need to work together and figure out what it means in the game and what will be fun. The question needs to be expanded to what does jumping back in time get me and how do I model those effects and it's a process? What would be fun and be allowed in game and what won't be allowed? -- And my own answers as a rusty GM The GM first has to decide if time travel is possible. -- Sure, this seems like a particularly neat effect, so yeah I'll open up the whole can of time travel worms. If yes the GM needs to decide what to do about paradoxes. Can the big events of the world be changed? What about the details? Can the details be changed but the big events remain? Is there a far future organization of timecops putting everything right that goes wrong? -- To the NOW, events get fixed in time the longer those events have existed the more fixed they are. It is possible to change the details but the events still happen. The future is not fixed, but to future people their past is fixed. If you go back and kill Hitler WWII still happens but the Germans rally around a different man. Pressing the "Earthquake button" can be stopped completely, no earthquake, if it happened 2 minutes ago. If it was 2 days ago an earthquake still happens but damage can be limited. If it was 2 years you can't stop it, either someone else triggers it, or it was just a natural earthquake, but maybe damage can be mitigated a little by retargeting it.The more often something is gone over the more it becomes fixed and the less each attempt can do. Call it a version of the many worlds theory. There are no time cops becasue from their point of view no big events can be changed. Next the GM answers what does that mean at the play level. This is where you start blending the mechanics in. A character can go back two minutes and change things, even big events. It's dramatic to shift back and retry stopping that nuke launch. -- GMs fiat in big dramatic circumstances particularly if the players failed something I'll let the character rewind time. I'll replay the whole chunk of time for the whole group. This time the tension is really high, becasue they know they failed once. But they have to careful the bad guys actions can change their actions too as they react to things turning out differently. Bought as EDM and heavily limited. I'm not letting this happen for every bank robber that gets away. Heavy limitations required. It could be an advantage in combat, you know how you opponent acts and attacks. -- Buy this as extra levels that fade over time as the current reality starts to differ from the reality you remember. Maybe 2 levels on a 1 turn continuing charge, 2 more levels on a 1 minute continuing charge and 2 more on a 2 minute continuing charge. A custom -1/4 to link these charges and model the instant you've jumped back to. You'll have 6 levels for a short period of time as sort of an uber competence/I knew you were going to do that period of time. You know things like how long you have to hold out before the rest of the team arrives and that an ambush is waiting around that corner. -- This is precog with limited control and possibly linked to the levels to model the 2 minutes and a tightly limited timeframe, buy it as such and I'll feed you info that fits in the time frame marked by the other effects like the levels. You know disposition of forces and other things that you can't normally know. You know there are 8 bank robbers, 2 in the vault, 16 hostages, and bulldozer is in there as hired muscle, but you don't know that one of the police captains will reveal himself as another villain and cause a major distraction if things go to far wrong -- This is modeled as a limited clarisentience, only to know what happened in one version of the future. So most of the time it plays out that you go though a fight and then jump back. We model this by having you trigger all your levels and the precog at the beginning of a fight and it's just understood that you've done this before. As GM I feed you the right kind of info to make that happen, "And in a couple seconds is the point where Anklyosaur jumps out of the bushes at you. There are other questions that need to be answered as well. Does the character go back only in mind or does future damage come back with him? If he jumps back to a time when he was sleeping or unconscious does he remain asleep or unconscious? Can he bring others back too? Answering these questions may give you ideas for other powers. Now that you get some experience and want to expand it to 2 days there are some other effects to buy. Remove some of the limits on the precog to allow for farther out knowledge Add some wealth to indicate your "luck" with the stock market and the lottery. Add some specialized skill levels with skills that can be helped by advanced warning of events or simply the practice of doing it a second time. Various business and interpersonal skills would benefit. Some levels of luck to model taking to time to set up things you need. "Of course I have that key". Some longer term levels, maybe even unlimited overall levels to model constantly jumping back. And for no points you get to be a great plot hook for the GM. "OMG the president has just been assassinated, I've only got 2 days to figure out who did it and stop it." Altogether It's going to get expensive. The info you can know is going to be crazy useful, and a fun plot hook for the GM. You can also tone up or down the levels depending on how well you can capitalize on what you learn. The point is, to make this very powerful effect happen in the game it takes some work on the part of both the GM and the player. You have to figure out how it fits in the game you may have to define part of the game around the effect. You have to figure out what will be fun for both players and GM and build on that. Up above you'll notice I explicitly defined the way time travel works to prevent big changes of historical events. I'm not fond of the idea of GMing a Harry Turtledove story and we didn't need a world where that could done to model the power as described. Had a player said they wanted to be able to jump back in time and change major historical events I would not have allowed it as it doesn't fit the campaign I run. But who knows that idea could spark the idea for a different campaign that does do that kind of thing. So the final question is is what I designed above going to be fun to play? From a players point of view. Yes probably. From the GM's poitn fo view? Uhhhm maybe. A lot of it could be fun, but mysteries are going to be changed quite a bit and ambushes and certain kinds of surprises are going to almost non existent. I might let it go, but only if the player understood that the character may have to change if it's to much.

Re: URBAN FANTASY HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? I agree, Charles de Lint's Newford needs to be covered in some fashion. My absolute favorite UF book is Robin McKinley's Sunshine. I'd love to see a setting based on that world. It's not exactly open warfare but it's certainly not in the shadows either. It's regular people knowing about and living with the mystical.

Re: Hero Dice and the Glory of Hero I got one too. I didn't know they existed before this thread.

Re: Money Perk The journalist gets the whole spotlight for a few minutes doing the initial investigation of a story that can turn out to be so much more. Also, there are minor effects that don't rise to the level of perk; the journalist has the ID to get in tp the mayors press conference, while Trust Fund man gets stopped by security. Also, from my point of view, in an RPG even negative attention is good. It makes that character the star or the game for a minute. While the journalist is rushing to find a phone trying to make the submission deadline Trust Fund man is left eating chips. Even if it doesn't add up to a perk or disadvantage having the hooks in the character design give the GM something to have plot points off of. The journalist is getting more attention both positive and negative becasue he is a more interesting character.

Re: How do you put someone to sleep? I like Mind Control over Transform because of the levels of effect of Mind Control. It's only EGO +0 at the end of a long boring guard shift, but EGO +30 in the middle of a fight.

Re: Money Perk It's the special effect of the money perk. The journalist has his job interfering in his heroing every so often but sometimes gets sent to investigate interesting stories. The trust fund guy gets neither the down side or the up. If the effects are minor enough than it all just falls into special effects. If the effects are larger than that, maybe the journalist is always in danger of losing his job, then it's time to see what disadvantages might apply. Maybe an occasionally/minor social limitation of some sort to indicate the nature of his job.

Re: EMP Weapons If we're talking real(-ish) effects then EMPs can have various effects on real electronics based on the strength of the EMP and the design of the electronics. It's harder to design EMP resistant electronics and it can be a bit more expensive to build but it's possible today. I don't need to put a FF on a military radio to harden it. The design of the electronics is very important. Generally electronics that are built to withstand EMPs are built are built and tested against certain documented and specified levels of EMP, pretty high levels. Even so they'll fail if the pulse is bigger. Devices that fail, fail in interesting ways. Going up the scale the effects you get are: No effect at all - It just keeps working. Recoverable Failure - The radio is noisy for a second, the video screen cuts out and comes right back Reset Failure - The device fails but recovers full functionality when reset. Damaged - The device fails and when reset is malfunctioning in some way. It must be repaired before full functionality is restored. The screen on the cellphone is dead, but you can still make calls. Or the radio on the cellphone is dead but you can still look up your address book. More Damaged- The device stops working. This is the same as damaged it's just more systemic, more or more important pieces failed. This is harder to repair but it can be done. However like a broken VCR it might be cheaper and easier to replace. It probably looks fine on the outside. Obliterated - The electronics are mush. You might be able to reuse the case if the electronics didn't melt it on their way out. I think the best model under the existing rules might be an Electronics only AVLD KA vs EMP defense. I said existing rules above because I think it would be interesting to model this as a tiered effect style attack (like a presence attack) of EMP attack vs. EMP defense. Defense + 0 is a recoverable failure Defense +10 is a reset failure and so on up the chart. This could be sort of realisitic but still make a nicely cinematic system. I'm imagining a scene where your Police Cruiser hits the pirate ship with an area effect EMP. Their stolen Military Laser Canons are fine, the cobbled together life support is heavily damaged, and the radios need a reset before you can talk with them and ask them not to use those lasers.

Re: So, what don't you like about HERO 5th? You know, every Monty Python quoting gamer has the background to make this error. "You stunned him, just as he was waking up" is definitely referring to unconscious. Of course in that particular instance the parrot was probably "Stun Dead".

Re: So, what don't you like about HERO 5th? I like Staggered. It's still common usage to describe that state and should have no cognitive overlap with STUN. I suspect it would clear up any need to distinguish it from the STUN characteristic and no one would ever use "Con Staggered" Obviously this is a crazy minor terminology problem. This is nothing compared the whole "level" problem in some other well known system. But hey, every little fix is a fix. I'm going to go make this as a suggestion in the 6th ed pages.

Re: So, what don't you like about HERO 5th? My only point was that there is room for confusion. We know this because people do get confused by this. I'm suggesting that that confusion is based on the fact that Stunned the condition has nothing to do with STUN the characteristic; it has everything to do with CON the characteristic. Look at the number of times this comes up on the boards. For some people it obviously makes more sense to clarify the condition. This is a terminology problem. Is it a bad one? Bad enough to bother changing in 6th ed? Probably not, as long as people understand each other. On a related side note[1], isn't it defined somewhere that stun between -9 and -0 leaves the character awake enough to have knowledge of their surroundings? If so I wouldn't call that unconscious, so what is it? [1] and here's where I have a chance to show my unfamiliarity with 5th...

Re: So, what don't you like about HERO 5th? In the past I was in a group that used STUNned for unconscious and CONned for con stun because the terms reference the characteristics they effect. There is obviously room for confusion here where many people see the name of a different and unrelated characteristic in the status's name. "What do you mean stunned has nothing to do with STUN?"

Re: Pulp Hero, after looking it over A buddy of mine picked me up a copy. So far I've only had a few hours of reading time, but so far it's brilliant. It's huge too, it's not as big as some of the books, but it's still bigger than my phone book. Steve Long, typing fingers of Steel. My favorite bit so far is the Hang On talent. Absolutly brilliant idea.

Re: Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero If so you probably want Sorry to keep dragging this back from the dead, but... Is this something that can be seperated from the self knowledge? I mean once some guy has had this spell cast on him can he explain this particularly important point to other people? It might be tough to convince someone but can it be done? Does that (un-tattooed) crazy guy living under the 5th street bridge really know the secret to the universe like he says he does? If so consider making this aspect a perk on it's own that is also added with this ritual.

Re: Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero Hey cool. I feel strongly that a character recieving a permanent power should pay for it and you covered all my objections. It doesn't matter how you stat out the power that gives powers. I'm curious how did you eventually decided to build the knowledge that's given?

Re: Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero I'm with Ganesh here (and myself from earlier). The effect of this is to allow a person to know about their past lives. That seems like a handful of appropriate Knowledge skills, some profesional skills if they had a useful profession in the past, and a perk that allows access to the deep dark campaign shattering knowledge. The ritual is what justifies that the person can buy those powers. Now, not everyone can cast that ritual so you want to limit it, it also has some in game utility so you want to make it cost. You can, not have to, but can do this by making it a perk. Not everyone can be pope, not everyone can get into the FBI's criminal database, not everyone can cast this spell. If your worried about a perk not having the trappings of a ritual, make it have the trappings. That exists already, Ability to Marry is a perk that allows you to perform the proper binding ritual. When it comes down to it my basic objection is this: You are permanently altering another character giving them valuable skills and knowledge. This should cost that character points.

Re: Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero Is this something you do to someone who doesn't want it? It doesn't sound like it from the write-up above. In that case just have the recipient buy whatever power you consider appropriate and make the ritual be the method that allows them to buy the power.

Re: More Automatons . . . Ah, I misread the original post. I wouldn't value this at -1 but otherwise its a cool idea for a limited summon.

Re: More Automatons . . . Isn't this just lockout (-1/2)?

Re: New System: Adjustment Powers Redone [Edited to say: "That was posted before I saw the new proposed fade rate"] I didn't crunch any numbers about fade rate, but I can come up with a quick example. This is fade rate differences for a speed 5 character hit on 12. I'm assuimg the fade is at the end of a phase. With no fade rate reduction and everything else being equal you get 60 points of effect for teh entire turn for 60 real points With a fade rate of 4 times a turn (-1) you get 60 points of effect for 30 real points, while the target loses: Phase / Reduction 3 / 60 5 / 45 8 / 30 10 / 15 12 / 15 Worth that -1? Maybe. With a fade rate of 12 times a turn (-6) you get 60 points of effect for 8 real points, while the target loses: Phase Reduction 3 / 50 5 / 40 8 / 25 10 / 15 12 / 5 The effective difference between that -1 limitation and that -6 limitation is almost nothing. The reduction is 5 active points lower 4 out of the 5 phases and only drasticly lower on 12, when the reduction is already pretty weak.

Re: New System: Adjustment Powers Redone

Re: New System: Adjustment Powers Redone Two points that no one has touched on yet. The first is that you've increased bookkeeping. By having the return happen exactly a turn after the hit happens you're making everyone record and the segment they got hit and check for return at the end of every segment. By the default (or house rule, who can remember these days) of returning post 12 thebookkeeping is reduced at the expense of a slightly weaker effect for an attack in the end of the round vs. the begining. Second, your gradual return rate limitation value is bad. (Your listed cost is different from the examples, I used teh examples values, cut these in half for the listed cost.) I think that the effective difference between returning 1/4 4 times a turn (-1) and returning 1/12 12 times a turn (-6) is pretty minimal for the difffernce in cost. Heck, the difference between 1/4 (-1) and 1/2 (-1/2) is going to be effectively different only for a couple of the targets phases in a turn. The cost savings can be incredible to the attacker. Also you've increased the bookkeeping again.

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes Two recent real examples. First, I wanted to play a wizard that has been doing a bunch of magical research in his tower for the last few years. He notices something is up and decided to go out into the field for real research. He's not powerful in battlefield magics because his studies have taken him a different way. In D&D terms, he could have been a 1st level mage except that all those knowledge skills he should have go up strictly with level. I would have gladly traded several known spellls for higher knowledge skill rolls. Second was a swashbuckling light fighter with some magical talent; a touch of dragons blood in the family tree perhaps.. It was just enough talent to let him detect magical auras and to use magical items (some interesting D&D magic items are limited to casters only). It was intended that in the future he might learn to augment his abilities making himself harder to hit, run faster, hit harder, sneak better, that kind of stuff. To do this I made him primarily a thief and had him take a level of sorcerer early on. That actually gave him many of the many of the things I wanted, but I also only ever used 2 spells (detect magic and mage armor). Even though getting a familiar is good part of the strength of a sorcerer I didn't do it for character. Also, because of the utility of Mage Armor I was eventually tempted away from concept and would cast it on several party members before a battle. So I didn't use some of the powers available to me, making me weaker than equivalent characters and pure utility of other powers tempted me away from the concepts I started with.

Re: If you could add one more... I strongly disagree with PhilFleischmann's idea that it is less useful to add a power than to increase an existing power. That may be true for his example of adding 10DC to someone's eb vs granting someone else a 10DC eb. But for other powers in other situations it's not true, and it's usually more pronounced for adding just a small amount of a power. When I'm falling granting me 2" of flight is much more useful than adding 2" to my flight. If I have flight I don't need those 2". Adding a 1 pip HKA when I need to take down Mr. (non-resistantly) Invincible is more useful when i don't have an HKA. If I have it I don't need it. Granting a 1 pip transform stone to mud lets me (eventually) transform my way out of a jail cell, adding one pip to someone's existing 3d6 transform doesn't shorten the time appreciably. Do you see what I'm getting at? The ability to grant the first couple of points of a power can be overwhelmingly powerful in some circumstances. Flat out giving it for free with aid isn't balanced. And... A method of doing this already exists. Why not use something like a Usable By Others (UBO) power and an aid. Even then I wouldn't be thrilled if someone tried to buy 5" flight UBO (x8 people) and a 1d6 flight aid with a high point limit and a long fade time.